Tesla to NYTimes: Your reporter lied

Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk has stepped up his fight with the New York Times over a negative review of the Model S sedan, publishing data from the car that appears to contradict parts of the review.

In a chart-laden post filed late Wednesday night on Tesla’s official blog, Musk said the Times reviewer “worked very hard to force our car to stop running.” Reviewer John Broder, Musk said, even drove circles in a parking lot in a deliberate bid to drain the battery.

Elon Musk and the Model S. Photo by AP.

“The logs show again that our Model S never had a chance with John Broder,” Musk wrote. He repeated his call for the paper to investigate its own review.

A spokeswoman for the Times said the paper planned to post a detailed response on its automotive blog, Wheels.

“As we have said previously, our story was fair and accurate,” said spokeswoman Eileen Murphy.

The all-electric Model S has received mostly glowing reviews (including from me) since it first rolled off the assembly line in Fremont last summer. So Broder’s piece, published last weekend, came as a bit of a stunner and thoroughly infuriated Musk. Broder wrote that the car’s battery pack drained much faster than expected as he drove up the East Coast in cold weather last month. Low on juice, the car eventually shut itself down in Connecticut and had to be towed.

The Model S can store detailed data on every drive — data showing the number of miles driven, changes in the battery pack’s charge, even the temperature inside the car. In his Wednesday blog post, Musk said the data from the car Broder drove contradicted several statements in the review.

For example, Broder wrote that after he grew concerned about the rapidly draining battery, he cut his speed to 54 mph on cruise control and set the car’s climate controls to low. The car’s interior, he wrote, grew so cold that knuckles turned white.

Musk, however, said that at the point Broder claims to have dropped the temperature, he actually raised it slightly, to 74 degrees. And at no point, Musk said, was the cruise control set to 54. Broder’s speed for the majority of the trip, according to Musk, ranged between 65 mph and 81 mph.

The final leg of Broder’s trip, Musk wrote, was 61 miles, but Broder stopped charging the car when its display said it only had enough electricity for 32 miles. The car died after traveling 51 miles.

“The car actually did an admirable job exceeding its projected range,” Musk wrote. “Had he not insisted on doing a nonstop 61-mile trip while staring at a screen that estimated half that range, all would have been well.”